She’s Burnt Out From Paying For Her Broke, Unemployed Fiancé’s Lifestyle
Every couple talks about building a future together, but what happens when one person is building it brick by brick while the other is just standing there, waiting for the house to be finished?
She said yes to a proposal, not realizing it would also mean saying yes to being her fiancé’s sole provider, financial cushion, and fallback plan.
Now, as the bills pile up and his business plans stay stuck in neutral, she’s starting to question if she’s supporting a dream or being taken for a ride.
This 38-year-old woman and her 41-year-old fiancé have been with one another for the last four years. Throughout the entire time that they have been together, her fiancé has struggled with money, while she has not.
She’s worked her heart out to get to a stable place financially, and nothing is more important to her than staying in this position.
At one point, thanks to her encouragement, her fiancé had a great job and was even saving up his money. He kept that up for over a year, and so she moved in with him. Then, he proposed and quit his job out of nowhere.
She was aware that her fiancé was stressed out with his career, but it provided him with a great source of income.
“He told me he would find at least a side gig in the next few months while he worked on building his own business. That allayed my stress for the time being,” she explained.
“It’s been 5 months now, and he still hasn’t found anything to bring in income, but he is working on building a business.”
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“The business is not likely to bring in any income for at least several more months, and I’m not sure if it will at all because I haven’t seen any progress.”
She tries to ask her fiancé about his game plan, but he hasn’t made any attempts to get clients yet.
While the business idea is solid overall, she doesn’t think her fiancé is doing the best job of executing it, as it doesn’t seem like he’s doing much.
Her fiancé is in debt to boot, and he has blown through all of his cash. She ended up lending money to him, but he never paid her back.
Instead, he asked if she could pay for his car and gas, since he helps her drive her kids around. That made her so uneasy that she refused, and that launched a fight that lasted days on end.
“He’s now asked me to cover his debts while he works on his business and frames it as me investing in him because we are building a partnership together,” she added.
“I get that, but the ask feels indefinite to me, and when I try to put an end date to it, conversations turn vague, and I’m left feeling like I don’t believe in him and I’m unwilling to support him.”
“Maybe I am unwilling to support him this way, financially, and that’s why I’m feeling so burnt out. I want to be a supportive partner, but I feel like I’m possibly being taken advantage of. I can also see the side where, sometimes, things are tough and partners have to support each other; sickness, health, rich, poor. You know?”
Adding to the hardships, there’s nothing stopping her fiancé from doing something, anything, to make money, but he’s not motivated.
She wishes he would consider a part-time job or side hustle while building his own business. Oh, and she’s tried to say something to him about finding work, but he waves her away and says he’s working so hard he doesn’t have that kind of time.
She feels that having the cash to pay for all their bills should take priority over her fiancé trying to launch his company. Yet, he has it all backwards.
“I’m able to pay all of the expenses, but it’s making me feel financially claustrophobic if that makes sense. I have goals that I have to sideline since I have his extra expenses at the moment,” she continued.
“When I tell him I’m at capacity and I can’t cover his expenses, I somehow end up feeling like I’m unsupportive and don’t believe in him, which isn’t the case. I just want him to cover his own life – he tells me everything is always ‘mine’ or ‘his’ and we need to think of everything together.”
“What’s the line between being supportive and being taken advantage of? What’s the line between being able to bring in income and being willing to bring in income?”
She’s left wondering how she can get through to her broke, unemployed fiancé that she can’t keep carrying all the weight alone anymore.
What advice do you have for her?
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